15 Blackwater mercs, including commander, killed in Yemen since Tuesday

The chief of Blackwater mercenaries in Yemen has been killed in clashes with Houthi Ansarullah fighters and allied forces in the country’s southwest, reports say.

Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah news website reported that the commander-in-chief of the private security firm in the country, a Mexican national, was slain in the al-Omari district of Ta’izz Province early on Wednesday.

According to the report, the recent fatality has brought to 15 the number of foreign forces with the Blackwater killed in clashes in Yemen since Tuesday. Some Australian, British, and French advisors and commanders — plus half a dozen Colombian soldiers — were among the dead. The mercenaries are part of the UAE forces that help Saudi Arabia in its war against the impoverished country.

A US security services training company, Blackwater Worldwide, which is now known as Academi, is one the most notorious private security firms in the world and is responsible for killing of scores of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen.

A Yemeni man carries his bags through the ruins of buildings destroyed in a Saudi airstrike on the capital, Sana’a, October 28, 2015. (AFP)

Yemen has been under military attacks by Saudi Arabia since March 26. The Saudi military strikes were launched with the aim of undermining Ansarullah and bringing fugitive former president of Yemen, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, back to power.

More than 7,500 people have been killed and over 14,000 others injured since the Saudi aerial aggression began. The Saudi war has also taken a heavy toll on Yemen’s facilities and infrastructure.